Nightmare Night
by Ms-RadiantRose
Summary: Fluttershy is hoping to celebrate a lovely, tranquil Nightmare Night with no nasty surprises. Unfortunately, Discord has a mysterious grudge against Mac, who finds himself facing his greatest fear. Fortunately, friendship is magic and all is well.


"I thought that Nightmare Night was meant to be a bit more ... frightening?"

Fluttershy's cottage was brightly lit. It was also decked out with fairy lights at the windows. Mac, Fluttershy and several animals were wearing flower garlands and everyone's glass of fruit punch contained a paper umbrella. Melodic guitar music played softly in the background.

"Oh, it is a frightening night!" said a creature, materialising out of thin air. "I make sure of that!"

"What the Sam Hill?" exclaimed Mac, who was unused to creatures appearing out of nowhere.

Discord's eyes narrowed.

"You!" he hissed at Mac.

"What, huh?"

"You from the Phoenix Foundation!"

"I've never met you before." Although something about Discord seemed oddly familiar.

"It's not what you've _done_," hissed Discord. "It's what you're _going_ to do."

"I don't think that's very nice," Fluttershy said.

"Or logical!" added Mac.

"You want to be a Phoenix so much, you be a Phoenix."

Mac was wondering what Discord meant, when suddenly he started feeling very strange.

He felt sudden, intense heat and smoke. Through the smoke, he could see woodland creatures backing away from him in alarm. He wanted to apologise for inadvertently spoiling their safe, happy evening. Briefly, he experienced searing pain and then realised he was blacking out.

Mac came to, pleased to discover that he was no longer in pain. He gingerly opened his eyes. Everything was disorientatingly white - was it some kind of avalanche? But wouldn't the snow be blocking out the light? He could hear a sound and moved towards it, pecking with what seemed to be a beak.

"Oh, thank goodness!" exclaimed Fluttershy. She turned to glare furiously at Discord, who was cowering in a corner of the living room, and then beamed at Mac. "You've hatched."

Mac realised that he was a newly hatched phoenix chick, and completely helpless.

"I need a plan," Fluttershy mused.

"I'm great with plans," Mac wanted to say. But his voice was gone, replaced by a simple chirp, and he had no plan. He tried to say, "Nice dream" to see if that would change him into a goat. He could cope with being a goat. But no.

He could hardly move, he could not speak and he had no plan.

His worst nightmare - he was entirely dependent on others.

Fluttershy wrote a note, which she handed to Harry the bear. "You'd better take a few of the birds with you, they know the way to Sweet Apple Acres better than you do."

Harry snorted indignantly - he knew the topography of Ponyville very well. But he set off, obediently, to fetch help.

For what seemed like a very long time, Fluttershy alternated between singing soothingly to Mac and directing The Stare at Discord. Finally, Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie arrived, all of them dressed up for Nightmare Night.

Mac felt bad about having ruined their night too, even though it was Discord's fault. They seemed to have put so much attention into their costumes, particularly Rarity, who was dressed as a queen.

"Where are Twilight and Rainbow Dash?" asked Fluttershy.

"The Wonderbolts' Amazing Maze. Apparently, you've never really been scared until a ghost has appeared to you whilst you're looping the loop."

Mac thought that sounded quite good fun.

"They're on their way," Rarity assured Fluttershy.

"Do any of you know what phoenix chicks eat?" asked Fluttershy.

"Not gonna lie," said Applejack. "I have no idea. I thought phoenixes rose fully-formed from ashes."

Discord rolled his eyes. "That's Northern Golden Phoenixes. This here is a Southern Bronze Phoenix. Obviously."

"I have a plan!" said Pinkie, bouncily. "I'll hop in my hot air balloon, head for the nearest late-night library and check out a book on feeding rare animals."

Applejack and Rarity both rolled their eyes. However, Pinkie's plan worked surprisingly well. She soon bounced in, with the book open at the right page.

Everyone, except Mac, was pleasantly surprised to find out that baby-phoenix food differed only slightly from fruit punch, with the addition of ground-up dragon claw clippings.

"Ouch!" protested Discord.

"Sorry," said Fluttershy, not sounding sorry. "I haven't had much practice at cutting dragon claws."

"How can The Stare even work on me?" asked Discord.

"It's worked since we became friends," said Fluttershy. "I thought you knew. My disapproval meant nothing to you until then."

Applejack took it upon herself to take Fluttershy's animals outside and have what she described as "a nice, soothing sing-a-long".

"You don't speak their language," protested Fluttershy.

"Music is a universal language," insisted Applejack. "I don't have to understand their lyrics and they don't have to understand mine."

Mac became aware that Pinkie was staring at him. "Mac looks miserable."

"How can you tell?" asked Rarity.

Pinkie pondered the question. "I don't know why, but I've always been great at reading expressions. Maybe he wants to hear some jokes."

They were pretty terrible jokes. Mainly about chickens, but with "phoenix" instead of "chicken". Mac didn't care about the jokes; he was just enjoying the feeling of not being alone.

Rarity started fretting about Mac looking chilly. She took off her costume and wrapped it round him. "I'm glad you don't need the tiara," she confessed. "I think it rather suits me."

Pinkie started telling Mac about the Grand Galloping Gala and the ill-mannered Prince whom Rarity had encountered. "And the next time we went to the Gala, Discord sort of lost it and tried to send Tree Hugger to a different dimension."

"I'm glad he didn't try that with you," said Fluttershy.

There was a knock on the door. "I hear that you may need some help," said Maud.

"Maud! How did you know?"

"Granny Smith contacted me on her crystal radio."

"I'm so glad you're here!" exclaimed Pinkie, setting off a small party cannon. "Now you can help me tell Mac some jokes."

Mac found Maud's humour to be intriguingly surreal. "I think Mac is laughing on the inside," Maud said to Pinkie.

Another knock. This time it was Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Dashie glared at Discord, but Twilight merely tutted. Maud stood back. Applejack came in again. She, Twilight, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie formed a circle around Mac.

Mac was intrigued by the bright lights and rainbow colours that flashed around the cottage. Also, very relieved to find himself turning back into the equine version of himself. He had faced his worst fear - being utterly helpless - and his friends had got him through it.

He noticed Discord sneaking out of the cottage. Mac rushed after him, to find Discord about to fly away in Pinkie's hot air balloon.

"Oh no, you don't!" Mac grabbed the rim of the basket of the balloon and held on whilst the balloon hovered a few feet above the ground.

"I feel like me!" was the thought racing through his head. "This is me! This is what I do!"

Discord narrowed his eyes. To Mac's surprise, he realised that Maud was next to him, clinging to the basket with one front hoof and manipulating a bewildering array of mirrors and prisms with the other.

Discord howled in anguish and the balloon descended. Mac was relieved to feel grass beneath his hooves.

"What was that?" he asked Maud.

"Basic physics," she replied. "I deflected Discord's spell back to himself."

Clearly, Discord had not been trying to use the same spell twice. Instead of resembling a phoenix at any stage in its life cycle, the inhabitant of the basket appeared to be a stone statue of Discord.

"And I made sure he will stay that way until next Nightmare Night," said Twilight, telekinetically lifting the stone Discord out of the basket.

"He'll be okay?"

"He'll be fine. I'll arrange for him to be transported to Canterlot so Celestia and Luna can keep their eyes on him, just to be on the safe side. Meanwhile, I suggest that Fluttershy should do something fun every Tuesday to take the place of having tea with Discord."

"You haven't seen Tree Hugger for a while," said Rainbow Dash.

"She's been travelling ... she's back now."

"Great, we can all meet up and she can tell us about some of the amazing places she's been."

"Tank's birthday is next week," said Pinkie. "We can have a party for that."

"He'll love that!" exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

"Do you like rocks?" asked Maud.

"I _could_ like rocks," said Fluttershy, gamely. "I hear you quite like flying kites."

"I love flying kites," said Maud, in a monotone.

"Kites it is," said Fluttershy.

Applejack noticed that Mac was shivering. "Come on, sugar cube," she said. "It's nice and cosy in the kitchen at Sweet Apple Acres and Winona would love to see you."

"Sounds good to me!" said Mac.

"Let's go," said Applejack. "Nightmare Night is fun, and all, but it's no good unless you have somewhere warm to go to eat the candy afterwards."

"You have candy?"

"Unless Apple Bloom ate it all."

"That would be horrific."

But Apple Bloom had left plenty of candy. There was a warm, cosy fire in the kitchen and some curried parsnip and apple soup bubbling in a pot.

"Do you have time to have some soup before we start on the candy?" asked Applejack. "We like to take our time over meals here at Sweet Apple Acres, but maybe you have somewhere you have to be."

"No, nothing to do for at least the next week."

"Or somewhere you would rather be?"

Winona rushed into the kitchen, jumped up and started licking Mac's face.

"There is nowhere I would rather be," he assured Applejack. "Absolutely nowhere."

But even the most pleasant evening Mac had enjoyed for a long time had to end. And, instead of waking up in a spare room at Sweet Apple Acres, he woke up in human form. In a bedroom that definitely wasn't his own.

"Thank goodness you're awake!" The words came from the lips of a very attractive woman with a sweet Southern accent. However, it crossed Mac's mind that Murdoc looked great in drag and was a master of accents.

What game was the universe playing with Mac?

Treat - or trick?


End file.
